October 20, 2008

A Rocky Road For Obma If Elected

No, that's not my opinion. My source is the always entertaining Joe Biden, who seems intent on lowering expectations to the point that the nation will marvel if Obama has the competence and vision to remember to show up on Jan 20 to be sworn in.

"I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going,
'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so
down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some
incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you
now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the
faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce
us."

"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa,
wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision',"
Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when
they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not
likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular,
they're probably not sound."

I don't like the sound of that. The good decisions won't be popular? The suspense is killing me. And speaking of killing me, what about this fear-mongering from Biden?

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the
second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six
months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.
The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old
senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it
standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're
gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the
mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five
scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City
supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities.
"And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is,
he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need
you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to
stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not
gonna be apparent that we're right."

Oh, great - so per Biden, after Obama gets the 3 AM phone call we will all think he blew it. I deplore this negative, attack-oriented campaigning. C'mon, Joe, give me a reason to Go With O!

Hmm - people deplored similar fear-mongering from Hillary and Rudy. Seasons change.

MORE: Jim Geraghty worries that the Senate won't be able to advise and consent in a crisis:

I'm hoping that, if Obama is elected, he nominates the best attorney
general, secretary of state, secretary of defense, secretary of
homeland security, etc., he can find. But if a crisis is unfolding, the
Senate will probably be under enormous pressure to confirm the nominees
and get them into their jobs as quickly as possible. That seems like
less than ideal circumstances for the Senate to exercise appropriate
scrutiny.

Well, golly, if Obama is so untested that we will have a series of
international crises — at the very time we are in a financial meltdown
— which will make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a walk in the
park, shouldn’t we vote for the other guy who will keep all
the miscreants in their place? Now, maybe we should rest easy because,
according to Biden, “I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most
of my colleagues know, so I’m not being falsely humble with you.”
(Maybe Hezbollah’s occupation of Lebanon was one of the things he forgot.)

The Captain reminds us of Kennedy's meeting with Krushchev "without preconditions":

What resulted? The Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis.
Kennedy wound up trading strategic intel and missile installations in
western Asia in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of the nuclear missiles
from Cuba. The entire Kennedy administration turned out to be a
foreign-policy disaster that was only overlooked because of the tragic
assassination of Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.

I agree with Biden. Obama is exactly like Kennedy in this regard,
and our enemies will test us by threatening our interests around the
globe if we elect Obama. I’d rather avoid the problem altogether and
elect a man who puts enough fear into the minds of our enemies to keep
them from testing us at all.

Feb 1, 2009. Two-way monitors are installed in every room of every home. The first image to come up: Joe Biden, saying, "See, I told you this wasn't going to be popular. But you voted for us. Now let me tell you about the summit we're convening to discuss what happened in New York. I'm thinking about popping up the gas tax to $5; it's good for the environment, and we can give the revenue to Iran to show there's no hard feelings."

Talk about chutzpah. With the election in the bag, Biden is now grooming a duped populace to ignore their lying eyes next Feb-July when DC statehood passes, abortions are paid for with public funds, the Marines are pulled out or Iraq in favor os Mogadishu II in Pakistan? And libs find Palin scary?

That's not to mention the problems that are going to follow Obama into office of his own doing. Rezko and all the peculiarities surrounding his campaign financing to name just two. How many political pitfalls has Obama not avoided, but fallen into and been pulled back out of, that would have killed any mere mortal politician?

I would see one of my jobs as essentially being the president of the Senate in the sense of actually not presiding as much as interacting, continuing to interact, talking to Harry Reid every day or talking to Nancy Pelosi,” Biden said

wouldn't it have been patriotic and "sound" to have supported President Bush's difficult decisions? and maybe a solid front against the world who takes and then complains could have "liked" us more? PLease, this guy is giving all democrats a warning-don't vote for us-we're going to screw you!

Boy, bad's Biden quote above directly contradicts Biden's debate putdown of Palin's answer to the VP's role question. Giddy at the chance to vilify Cheney, Biden angrily and wrongly claimed then that the VP has no legislative role as it's a solely Executive Branch position.

Overall, the piece is very disappointing compared to Lizza's article on Obama.

Biden uses the word presumptuous a lot.

Here is Biden on Biden:

“I’m going to say something presumptuous,” Biden said to me. “There’s one advantage in having been around as long as I have. Everybody in the Senate knows me, and—I’m going to say something presumptuous, to repeat myself—I think most respect me.”

Did everyone see Obama's comment that what McCain calls socialism, he calls "opportunity"? I think it gives McCain a great chance to explain why it won't work no matter what Obama wants to call it. And if McCain wraps it up by saying, "As Senator Obama rather ham-handedly remarked a few weeks ago, 'You can put lipstick on a pig: it's still a pig," more power to him.

In one way, at least, the Dick Cheney model appeals to Obama: he (Biden) represents the virtues of strong Washington experience, a close relationship with the President, and no hidden political ambitions. Unlike Humphrey, Mondale, Bush, and Gore, Cheney has not spent his tenure worrying about a future Presidential campaign...

Imagine actually believing a Cheney model has no hidden agenda. Is Lizza unaware of the Dark Overlords aspirations? geez...get a clue dude...

Does Joe Illuminati know something we don't know, like another building is going to horrifically blow up or another war is in the works? Does he want to spark visions of the Bush administration? I am totally freaked out.

I'm inclined to believe the neighbors had a close relationshipo and the report is thus not farfetched, but I have no idea about the credibility of the source or when or if he/she will go public with that story.

The touchy interview tapes of Michelle Obama, the wife of the US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is soon ready for release in the US and will be aired unedited.

The release has taken long due to the fact that API wanted to clear all legal hurdles and be safe from getting sued by any one. API and a US Law firm - LAW OFFICES OF PHILIP J. BERG has just entered into an agreement giving the law firm the right to represent API in all matters that may arise due to the Michelle Obama interview and the release of the tapes in the US.

API has realised that the interview with Mrs Obama is of great significance in the coming elections. The release of the tapes is not intended to derail the elections or to destroy the chances that Mr Obama may have in getting elected the first black president of the United States.”

They're suspicious of a hoax, and dismayed that it might be a distraction for Berg. I think they're worried about Obama producing a Hawaiian birth certificate from the vault, despite that he still has Indonesian citizenship, and traveled as an adult under it, like to Pakistan.
======================

I thought Europe was gonna love us again when O got in, just like they did when... uh, whenever that time was, when they loved us. Oh yeah. The moon landing. They loved us for a day or two then I think.

So Biden says the right decisions are UNpopular? Gee, how right is Bush, then?

Powell has endorsed McCain. Huh? Is that some sort of typo? Nope. It is the Powell endorsement that the mainstream media is ignoring. Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama which was widely heralded in the MSM. However, his son, former FCC Commission Chairman Michael Powell has endorsed John McCain. The MSM is conveniently ignoring it but here is the report of this endorsement in The Hill:

How dare Biden hint that a switch from Shrub's "we can finance two-and-a-half wars AND cut taxes on the rich AND pay for Reagan's debtload" might not be popular with the country that bought this pap for eight years! Everybody knows that the American electorate is just YEARNING to be told the brutal truth about structural deficits.

Biden is not talking about the Bay of Pigs but about the Cuban Missile Crisis which followed a weak performance by JFK the Vienna summit with Khrushchev. It was the closest we came to a nuclear war ever.

Biden is just being realistic. W was tested by the chinese soon after taking office (remember the spy plane deal). I think we can count on a one-two punch of Obama is elected as a number of nations decide to challenge his spine, probably taking advantage of the timing of other crisises.

I suspect McCain, with his known anger, won't have the same level of trouble from the world but of course Biden wouldn't say that at this point.

You don't have to go back to JFK to recall an example of a serious challenge to a new President. It happened to Bush in April 2001, when the Chinese downed a US Navy plane while it was flying over international waters. This incident seems to have gone down the collective MSM memory hole. If Obama wins the upcoming election, the challenge could come much sooner if the Israelis decide they cannot wait to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. What if they decide they need to take action before Bush leaves office?

I'm going off topic for a minute, but can someone clear up Obama's "tax cut" for the middle class for me? I swear he is offering a one time check for $1000 while allowing Bush's tax cuts to expire. There is no tax cut, at least as far as I can tell.

To be fair, there are some countries out there who will test any new president, McCain or Obama and the next guy and the guy after him, too. Like China. They always create an international incident within the first year of any new administration, usually by means of making someone else's aircraft land involuntarily...

To answer MarkJ's question, anticipate that under Obama's health plan the government will offer free girders to those who had sub-prime loins, but those who are rich in girth will be taxed to spread their width around. Be assured that most small businessmen should see a lower girth rate or even a girth rebate, allowing them to expand their loins as the credit squeeze lets up.

"So which of our enemies is the NoBama camp in talks with to spring that "challenge," and what were they promised for doing it?"

With hundreds of foreign policy advisers, all of whom appear to be putting out anti-Israel messages continuously, I doubt if there is any need to talk to any of our enemies. They clearly get the message; open season on Israel the day Obama takes office.

In addition:
"Obama advisor Michael Schiffer told reporters that Obama's first step after the election will be to pull troops from Iraq."

How much talking to our enemies would one have to do before they understood that they were free to destroy Iraq?

A cynical take, (and one that requires Joe to be clever), is that Joe is giving a pre-warning for when, gosh darn, gee whiz, Obama won't be able to cut those taxes after all, in fact, he will need to raise them and we will all need to sacrifice together to repair the damage of the Bush years.

@mrkwong: The standoff with the Soviets was hardly a draw. With his gambit of placing missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev wanted to force the US to withdraw its missiles from Turkey. That is precisely what he got as part of the agreement to end the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK quietly ordered the missiles out of Turkey because he knew the Soviets had the US boxed into a corner. That's when JFK learned the lesson that Obama is stubbornly determined to ignore. For good reason, Putin surely must view Obama in the same way Khrushchev viewed JFK. I predict Obama will blink first.

MarkJ: Do not forget that under Obama's nationalized health care plan, you will also get a free petard to hoist your loins on, under a single petard payer plan, which really distinguishes it from McCain's plan, under which you will be free to choose your own petard payer.

Well his father was an alcoholic who died in an auto accident and his mother died of cervical cancer..neither of which seem to be problems he has to worry about.It's not as though his family has congenital heart diease .

Why is McCain not hitting Obama harder on the tax cuts issue? It isn't a tax cut. It is a check for $500 if you work, $1000 if both spouses work, and then it squishes into the tax credits for college (I don't have college age children so scratch that for me), mortgage interest credit (paid my house off, so scratch that too). And on January 1, 2011, the tax rate increases for everyone when Bush's tax cuts expire. On Obama's website, he skips right past Bush and even Clinton and heads into Reagan territory. We will be paying 20% less than we paid under Reagan. Nary a mention of the high income tax rate that Reagan inherited from Carter and had to work to reduce. Any reason why McCain isn't hammering Obama on the tax increase for middle class wage earners when Bush's tax cut expires?